And it was only months after a PCC National Congress in April — its first such summit since 1997 — that the pace of Castro’s economic reforms began to speed up.

Dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe wrote in a column that the PCC’s agenda for the conference was “absolutely cosmetic” and that Cubans have “a total lack of interest in the results.”

Also skeptical was Orlando Marquez, communications director for the Catholic Archdiocese of Havana.

“I don’t know what’s going to come out of the conference, but judging from the agenda there should be no hope for big changes,” Marquez was quoted as saying in a report published by the magazine Espacio Laical — Lay Space.

Other Cubans say the Conference might strengthen the more orthodox members within the PCC, once considered an obedient vehicle that Fidel Castro used to carry out his decisions until his health crisis in 2006.

“Among those sectors closest to the more traditional and orthodox interpretations of the ruling Marxist-Stalinism … there is an evident interest in reinforcing the power of the PCC,” Alexis Pestano, a member of the editorial board of Espacio Laical, was quoted as saying in the magazine article.

Reinaldo Escobar, who regularly criticizes the government in his Havana-based blog Desde Aqui — From Here — wrote that he expected little from the gathering but added, “I have no choice but to listen and hope.”

Perhaps, he noted, some young party official from some remote place will “put his finger in the wound, and then a fresh breeze will enter through a window left open accidentally and will wake up everyone.”